Mask from Libro di Variate mascare
René Boyvin
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
In 1555, the printmaker Frans Huys made a set of eighteen engravings of masks after designs by the sculptor Cornelis Floris, which were published in Antwerp by Hans I Liefrinck. A delirious amalgam of marine, plant, and human features, Floris’s grotesque masks illustrate the early modern fascination with the monstrous and possibly allude to Antwerp’s sea trade. They were inspired by art from ancient Rome as well as the artistic vocabulary developed by artists working at the French royal palace of Fontainebleau. The French influence is seen most clearly in the mask composed of architectural forms, including sculptural strapwork, cartouches, and scalloped niches. Various copies were soon made after the series by Floris and Huys, demonstrating the popularity of such masks across Europe. This print belongs to an Italian set of twenty-four signed with the monogram IHS. In addition to copies after Floris, the set included six original designs. It was likely acquired by the French printmaker René Boyvin, who published the designs under his own name with a title page. Boyvin himself produced numerous prints inspired by the decorations at Fontainebleau for an expanding market of artists and collectors.
Drawings and Prints
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.